By George

Date: Sat, 2010/04/03 – 11:00am – Thu, 2010/04/08 – 8:00am
Category: Exhibition

By various artists

Preview: Friday, 2 April, 6.30 p.m.

Surveillance is not a phenomenon born out of yesterday. From the proposal of panopticon by Jeremy Bentham in 18th century England to the ubiquitous CCTV camera becoming an upgraded metaphor for the 360 degrees panopticon-style surveillance. It has been a gradual process of inundation.

Thus far, surveillance has been operative in the public domain and has been critical in places of commerce, but lawmakers across the globe are keen on paving insidious inroads into the domestic. And this development could mark a turning point in the history of our lives.

By George is a euphemistic expression of wonderment. It really just means by God. Oh, and yes, it helps if you intone it in a propah British accent. The title of our humble show, By George is a play on George Orwell and subsequently the notion of surveillance as some sort of presiding perverted omniscience. Although Orwell and his prescient dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) resonate the underlying themes of the show, artists are not obliged to respond to either. The artists have produced works, which engage with crises that will go footloose on us once the domestic setup gets subsumed into the panopticon.

Gitanjali Dang